Kenny calls Adolph Reed Jr an IDIOT for having putatively argued that black church is inherently reactionary on account of being a religious institution.
At any rate, Reed makes no such argument in his book Jesse Jackson Phenomenon. He specifically examines the role the Church played in the civil rights movement; and he raises questions about the nature of open debate and conflict within the African-American community, as well as the accountability of its leaders. Relying on the research of Earl Picard, he criticizes the program of Operation Push. It's been six years since I read the book.
I suspect that Kenny's harsh comments about Adolph are retribution for the criticisms the latter made in the Village Voice of the new charlatan black intellectuals (the comments are obviously not based on a careful criticism of what Adolph actually wrote); perhaps Kenny thinks calling Adolph an idiot will persuade some of these charlatans or those who identify with him to be his first black friends or just write blurbs on the back of his upcoming book which will doubtless need the adulation of some colored person. At any rate, long before Robin Kelley intervened in the underclass discourse or in the debate about the Nation of Islam, Adolph had made such criticisms...and more effectively I would argue. Adolph may or may not be right that Robin Kelley (I think a good debate can be had here) had inflated the concept of resistance to render it meaningless. But the criticism was not idiotic. It's obvious that what Adolph has written about the problems in the assumption of uniformity within the black community may be opposed to Kenny's much awaited defense of African-American identity politics. But calling him an idiot is not grappling with the arguments.
Rakesh